The Cursed Thread of 2019

[Pyeknu]

And we begin with a new year.  Sad news for wrestling fans:

https://www.newsweek.com/mean-gene-okerl...76-1277134

[Pyeknu]

Sad news for fans of another 80s classic entertainer:

https://globalnews.ca/news/4808520/super...hTFehkHJjw

[robkelk]

Sad news for wrestling fans:

'Mean Gene' Okerlund

Sad news for fans of another 80s classic entertainer:

Bob Einstein, best-known for playing "Super Dave Osborne". He also played Larry Middleman on Arrested Development and Marty Funkhouser on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

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RIP Daryl Dragon, "The Captain" in The Captain and Tennille.

[robkelk]

RIP Pegi Young, singer and ex-wife of Neil Young.

[Kilroy]

W. Morgan Shepherd has died at the age of 86. He was Blank Reg from Max Headroom, various Star Trek roles, Babylon 5, even on Doctor Who.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-n...r-13823875

[robkelk]

RIP Ron Pumphrey, broadcaster, author, 'extrovert extraordinaire'

[robkelk]

RIP Carol Channing

[robkelk]

RIP Ernest Tucker, whose career was filled with firsts

[Bob Schroeck]

Boo, 'world's cutest dog,' dies aged 12

[robkelk]

RIP Mary Oliver, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet

[DHBirr]

Columnist Russell Baker died on the 21st.  Age 93.

“Listening to the economics wizards talk about the recession, you get the feeling that things are going to get better as soon as they get worse.”

“O mighty Internal Revenue, who turneth the labor of man to ashes, we thank thee for the multitude of thy forms which thou hast set before us and for the infinite confusion of thy commandments which multiplieth the fortunes of lawyer and accountant alike. . . . Grant that this sacrifice not be found insufficient unto thy auditor.”

[robkelk]

The first homicide in Montreal in 2019 is a high-profile case.

RIP Tony Magi, real estate developer known to have ties to the Montreal Mafia.

"The only thing surprising is that it took this long. The guy is the cat of the underworld because he has gone through so many of his nine lives."

This might have been "un réglement de comptes" - a settling of accounts - but was it a (missed) payoff or a payback? We might never know.

[DHBirr]

Damn it, damn it, DAMN IT!  James Ingram is gone.

[Pyeknu]

Dick Miller has passed on: https://variety.com/2019/film/news/dick-...B8Pb85kp3c

[SelfCloak]

Stewart Adams, a British chemist who developed the painkiller ibuprofen, died on January 30. He was 95.

[Pyeknu]

Tim Hortons' founder Ron Joyce has passed on: https://www.cp24.com/news/tim-hortons-co...-1.4278936

[robkelk]

RIP Michael Ferguson, Auditor General of Canada.

[robkelk]

RIP Kristoff St. John, one of the first black actors to get a role on a soap opera.

[robkelk]

RIP Julie Adams, best-known as the (human) star of Creature from the Black Lagoon

[Bob Schroeck]

Ah, jeeze. Albert Finney.

[robkelk]

RIP Frank Robinson, the only Major League Baseball player to win the MVP award in both leagues, the first black manager in MLB, and the last manager of the Montreal Expos

[Pyeknu]

Michael Wilson, Canada's former finance minister and ambassador to the United States, has passed on: https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/former-f...-1.4290845

He was the man who helped negotiate the original free trade agreement with the United States (and later NAFTA with the US and Mexico) and also introduced the Goods and Services Tax to help streamline spending taxes to the government.

[robkelk]

RIP Joe Schlesinger

One of the "Kindertransport" children who escape the Holocaust, and then forced to escape Czechoslovakia in 1950, Schlesinger would go on to become one of the (if not the) foremost Canadian news correspondents. He reported on- amongst other stories - the Cultural Revolution, the Iranian revolution (from inside Iran but not confined to Tehran), the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first Gulf War, the Velvet Revolution, the Challenger disaster, and (his final story) the controversy over Hillary Clinton's health problems during the 2016 election.

A little less than a year prior to that, in December 2015, he explored a subject near to his heart: the plight of refugees, specifically those fleeing the Syrian conflict and seeking sanctuary in Canada.

In the piece, Schlesinger acknowledged that amid fears of high unemployment and the risks of terrorism, many Canadians had reservations about welcoming this crop of refugees.

But as someone who had been a refugee himself, and met many more during his decades-long career as a journalist, Schlesinger advised Canadians to be compassionate.

"This country was built and changed for the better by refugees," he wrote.

[Bob Schroeck]

Lee Radziwill, sister of Jackie Onassis

[robkelk]

RIP Betty Ballantine

While she didn't invent the paperback book, she certainly popularized it in North America. She also popularized in North America some books you might have heard of, including The Hobbit and Fahrenheit 451.